Aaron's Rod eBook

“Well,” thought Aaron, “if this
is all it amounts to, to be rich, you can have riches.
They talk about money being power. But the only
sort of power it has over me is to bring on a kind
of numbness, which I fairly hate. No wonder
rich people don’t seem to be really alive.”

The relief of escaping quite took away his self-conscious
embarrassment at the station. He carried his
own bags, bought a third-class ticket, and got into
the train for Milan without caring one straw for the
comments or the looks of the porters.

It began to rain. The rain ran across the great
plain of north Italy. Aaron sat in his wood-seated
carriage and smoked his pipe in silence, looking at
the thick, short Lombards opposite him without heeding
them. He paid hardly any outward attention to
his surroundings, but sat involved in himself.

In Milan he had been advised to go to the Hotel Britannia,
because it was not expensive, and English people went
there. So he took a carriage, drove round the
green space in front of Milan station, and away into
the town. The streets were busy, but only half-heartedly
so.

It must be confessed that every new move he made was
rather an effort. Even he himself wondered why
he was struggling with foreign porters and foreign
cabmen, being talked at and not understanding a word.
But there he was. So he went on with it.

The hotel was small and congenial. The hotel
porter answered in English. Aaron was given
a little room with a tiny balcony, looking on to a
quiet street. So, he had a home of his own once
more. He washed, and then counted his money.
Thirty-seven pounds he had: and no more.
He stood on the balcony and looked at the people going
by below. Life seems to be moving so quick,
when one looks down on it from above.

Across the road was a large stone house with its green
shutters all closed. But from the flagpole under
the eaves, over the central window of the uppermost
floor—­the house was four storeys high—­waved
the Italian flag in the melancholy damp air.
Aaron looked at it—­the red, white and
green tricolour, with the white cross of Savoy in the
centre. It hung damp and still. And there
seemed a curious vacancy in the city—­something
empty and depressing in the great human centre.
Not that there was really a lack of people. But
the spirit of the town seemed depressed and empty.
It was a national holiday. The Italian flag
was hanging from almost every housefront.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon.
Aaron sat in the restaurant of the hotel drinking
tea, for he was rather tired, and looking through
the thin curtains at the little square outside, where
people passed: little groups of dark, aimless-seeming
men, a little bit poorer looking—­perhaps
rather shorter in stature—­but very much
like the people in any other town. Yet the feeling
of the city was so different from that of London.
There seemed a curious emptiness. The rain had
ceased, but the pavements were still wet. There
was a tension.